Burying the Hatchet: Redefining Hold in Holding Space

"Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave." -

Maya Angelou

To self-actualise is an act of courage. It is standing before your roots and saying: I honour you, and I also choose myself. For the eldest daughter, the Mafungwashe, the Rakgadi, this courage is not born in comfort. It grows in the tension between duty and desire, legacy and self-definition.

Healing has taught me to ask:

Who am I, outside of being needed?

Outside of expectations?

Outside of carrying what was never mine?

Meeting the healed self feels like going on a first date.

What does she like?

Where does she linger?

What sound draws her heart?

What song makes her sing?

What colour feels like home against her skin?

What food nourishes her not just with fullness, but with joy?

What drink warms her in delight rather than duty?

This exploration is not indulgence — it is reclamation. It is the work of healing. And healing is never just personal.

From a psychological and intergenerational perspective, the idea that “when you heal yourself, you heal your lineage” is grounded in both research and lived experience:

• Epigenetics: Trauma and stress can leave chemical “marks” on DNA that influence how genes are expressed. Healing practices—reducing stress, fostering safety, nurturing resilience—can shift how these expressions are passed on.

• Family dynamics: When one person interrupts cycles of silence, abuse, or unhealthy coping, the shape of love changes for future generations. Safety feels possible in ways it never did before.

• African spirituality: In many African cosmologies, ancestors are living participants in our lives. Healing ourselves reconnects us to them and restores balance in the family lineage. Ubuntu teaches that we are interconnected: when one heals, the whole community - past, present, and future - benefits. Our liberation, our peace, and our self-discovery ripple through time, offering blessings to those who came before and those yet to come.

  
  

This doesn’t mean everything is magically erased. Instead, your healing creates new patterns, breaks cycles, and shifts the inheritance - emotional, relational, and sometimes even biological - that flows through your lineage.

Rooted but not restrained. Anchored but not weighed down. This is how I am learning to redefine “hold” in holding space. Not as a fixer, not as a silent carrier of burden, but as a woman who is whole. Who loves deeply without losing herself. Who honours the stream of family life without drowning in it.

Burying the hatchet is not the end of love; it is its gentle rebirth. It is an act of grace - for me, for my parents, for my ancestors, and for those yet to come. In this letting go, I step into the fullness of my own presence, embracing both the roots that ground me and the freedom to define myself.

In choosing to honor myself, to redefine how I hold space, I begin to see that awakening to who I am is both a personal and ancestral journey, a process of consciousness that unfolds over time:

"Being is one thing; becoming aware of it is a point of arrival by an awakened consciousness and this involves a journey." - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

This journey is not a destination but a rhythm of awakening: a path where self-discovery, ancestral healing, and liberation converge.

To heal oneself is to honor the past, embrace the present, and create a legacy of wholeness for the generations that follow.